Even the President of KBS Should Undergo a Personnel Hearing

The Grand National Party (GNP) has decided to positively promote the revision of related law in the 17th National Assembly under the guidance of the head of the central personnel committee, the head of the broadcasting committee, and the president of KBS as the subjects of a personnel hearing in the National Assembly on May 28.

The head commissioner of the Special Committee for Policy Development, Lee Han-gu, announced a plan for political reform and said, “To stop misuse and abuse of public power, we decided to enlarge the procedure of holding a personnel hearing about heads of organizations having special power.”

Beside them, the head of the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption, the head of the Financial Supervisory Commission, the head of the Fair Trade Commission, the head of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, and the president of the Bank of Korea are additional subjects for a hearing by the GNP.

At this moment, those who are the subjects of the personnel hearing are the head of the National Intelligence Service, the Attorney General, the head of the National Police Agency, the head of the National Tax Service, and high officials such as the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the head of the Board of the Audit and Inspection (BAI), a justice of the Supreme Court, the constitutional Court judge, and the National Election Commissioners who need to be elected or agreed upon in the National Assembly.

The GNP also decided to drive forward a plan to change by appointing the Attorney General for political neutrality. So the way of appointing the Attorney General will be changed from the one through the Minister of Justice’s recommendation to the one through the president’s designation among several people recommended by lawyers’ circles and law professors’ circles just like how prosecutor in special probes are chosen.

Along with this, the GNP plans to introduce a two-and-a-half year term system for the head of the National Tax Service, abolish special tax investigations, and announce concrete results, which resulted from the tax investigation.

It also suggested plans such as extending the period of the national affairs audit and establishing an occasional national affairs audit system, changing a standing committee of the Budget Decision Committee and abolishing a system of holding additional positions, alleviating requisites for auditing from the BAI and for voting in a general meeting of a standing committee or reducing its scale to one third in a general meeting, and cutting lawmakers’ allowances when they are absent without leave.

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com